His
by LoveFromShinola
Summary: Raoul was never blind to the things he couldn't help but see, but he tried with all his might to ignore them. Until that day, with Gustave and the piano...


**AN:**

**Hey So, I've seen the 2004 film, several old film versions, read the Leroux book and the Kay book and watched the 25****th**** anniversary performance at the RAH. I now wanted to write just a little one shot of a Phantom phan-fic for everyone. This is set two, almost three years after POTO but is AU for LND except for the existence and parentage of Gustave and Raoul's drinking/financial problems. Hope you like. I do NOT own Phantom. **

Walking around your own house, you don't expect to be taken by surprise. In your natural environment, you don't imagine stumbling upon anything that might shock or alarm you. Such is the nature of 'the home', that you quite obviously anticipate no perils around the corners. Only comfort, security and safety. This, however, was not the case for Raoul de Chagny, one day as he walked about his chateau.

Christine had disappeared somewhere with a maid, some problem with draperies or some such nonsense. So, in a random act of boredom, Raoul had sought out their son.

Gustave was two and a merry child, but a child nonetheless and Raoul, whilst loving him dearly and utterly, had never known quite how to behave around children. They were a different thing altogether to adults and he just didn't understand them. Nevertheless, his son smiled at him as he entered the room. The nursemaid left without a word and Raoul sat and watched as Gustave played, but soon becoming distracted by the elegant view through the window. Mundane thoughts began to creep upon him – finances, woes, worries, until he thought he'd best leave and divert himself with some excitement.

Until he heard the music.

He thought he'd imagined it at first. The tinkling of piano keys - soft and melodious. But then he looked about and noticed Gustave was no longer there. There was a piano in the next room - the drawing room. An unused, dusty thing, left there for show more than anything else. Raoul had never touched it and neither to his knowledge had Christine. Music was not something one often heard in the house, unless you counted Christine singing to Gustave, late at night when she thought he couldn't hear.

Darting from the room, he threw open the drawing room door to see, to his horror, his son tinkering at the keys. It was not such a wondrous melody, but it was rhythmic all the same, not a simple slamming of the keys in play. This was repeated. This was…music. A horrific, horrendous, impossible thought clutched at Raoul's mind until he could bear it no longer. Sweeping forward he caught Gustave in his arms and tore out, depositing the whimpering child into the arms of the nearest maid. He set down the corridor at a frantic pace and thought he heard Christine calling, but he did not stop. He ran into men and maids and furniture, desperate to reach the door, to be free of the memory of that melody, pounding in his mind. His carriage was not waiting, because of course he had not called it and so he set out on foot, unused to the exercise and kicking up stones with every shuddering slam of his feet against the walk.

What he was thinking could not be true. It was not possible. It was unbelievable and stomach-turning and cruel and…and oh so believable after hearing that sound. He knew that Christine's father, the boy's namesake, had been a violinist. But that could never account for what he had witnessed. As far as he was aware his son, oh God, _his _son, had never touched a piano before today. And yet, his melody had been constant, repeating, catchy. Raoul was no musician himself, but he believed that was everything a melody should be. It had been childish yes, but it had been advanced too. The boy was only two years old, it was unthinkable that he would be able to – unless he was – but he couldn't be – she wouldn't…

_She would_, said that voice in his head. That voice he had not listened to in a long time. Revulsion, fear, panic. He had seen all of those emotions play across his now-wife's face in those last frantic moments beneath the Opera. He had believed she felt them for herself, as well as him, but now he was not so sure. Yes, she had shown clear signs of distress, of terror, at the thought of that creature before that night. But in those last moments, when she had kissed the brute, God, when she had kissed him, and he had let them go, she had pulled at Raoul's arm with a force and a terror.

Yet, she had always been fearful for _him_, not for herself. She had gone back to the beast. She had turned back, against all his protests. She had given him back the ring and she had kissed his hand, with tears streaming down her face. He had seen it all, but had denied it, to her and to himself.

His fiancé, his angel-voiced darling, _his _Christine, could never feel anything but pity and hatred for that monster of a man.

Could she?

This was too much. He needed a drink, he needed a stiff, strong drink, he – he stopped. His feet, his damnable, betraying feet had brought him to this place, this shell of an opera house. Almost three years after the event and work was still going on. The place, this once grand place, would never be the same again. Like those who had lived through those legendary events, it was scarred and changed forever. Somewhere in its bowels still sat the monster's home, tarnished and wrecked, but there nonetheless. He had come here once before, a year ago, aimlessly wandering in the carriage he had told the driver to halt and just sat for a few minutes, watching. But now he did not have the carriage to conceal himself and he saw all too late the still-familiar form of Madame Giry, marching across the way, stern-looking and tired. He looked hastily about for a place to hide, but she had already seen him. How could he face her with this new revelation buzzing in his brain? No! He must not treat it so. It was not a revelation, not yet, not until he confronted Christine and confront her he would. He had not Giry since the few days after the Opera in which comfort had been passed to and fro. Nowadays he had no idea what she did, with the theatre still closed. She seemed more interested in him however, her dark eyes shining bright as she came closer to him:

'Monsieur le Vicomte,' she nodded sternly and he scraped a nod back:

'Madame Giry,' he looked about for a topic and found it in what was not there, 'Is Meg not with you?'

'She is busy,' she responded curtly. 'How is Christine?'

Raoul tried not to anger at her persistent use of his wife's first name. After all, she was nobility now and Giry was a ballet teacher – if the best.

'Well, thank you Madame.'

'And your son? Gustave, is he not?' she smiled, 'But of course. I had a feeling Christine would honour her father in such a way.'

'Gustave - ' He tried desperately not to let his throat catch on the name, his son's name, or not his son…he was so confused he could barely think. He cleared his throat, shook his head, tried to start afresh as Giry frowned at him, 'Gustave is quite well, thank you, Madame.'

'Does he show any musical talent, Monsieur?' Raoul's head shot up, but he saw nothing in her eyes. She merely enquired because of Christine, or had, until she saw the fear and shock in his gaze. It took her no longer than a few seconds to translate the meaning in his eyes and connect it with his earlier pause. Her hand flew to her mouth.

'Madame - ' he hastened, trying to find words to stop her. If another person spoke his fear out loud, he thought he might go mad.

'He – oh Monsieur, is…is there any _question?_'

'No!' he exclaimed. He would not let her think it too, he would not let anyone think it. Gustave was _his_ son, he had to be his son. Christine had never seen the monster again after that night, never. Why, until their wedding night she had never left his –

Raoul's stomach churned.

She had. For one night, for just one, single night, the night before their wedding, he had not seen her. She had said later it had been to 'enhance the anticipation'. Had she really gone to see _him _the night before they were married? Had he been the second man to touch his wife? Had that _thing _had her before him, touched her, held her – he thought he might be sick.

Giry still looked on, her once cold eyes now filled with deep concern:

'Monsieur? Forgive me, I did not mean to pry. I only – Monsieur you looked so forlorn.'

There was no stopping it now. He was panicking. His heart was going at a hundred miles a minute and he looked at the woman across from him before he sank to the ground. She exclaimed and followed him and, for the first and last time, he admitted to an outsider his newfound greatest torment:

'Yes.'

She was confused.

'Pardon?'

'_Yes._' He breathed and locked his gaze with hers, and she knew.

There was no more to be said. Without one more word, he rose, the pain he was feeling gone in a rush of adrenalin. He had no time for Giry now. Now, he must talk with his wife.

He left the ballet mistress standing in the street, her parcels strewn where they had fallen, looking after him with tear-filled eyes. Would the Opera Ghost never cease in haunting them?

'Christine?'

'Raoul!' she flung herself at him. Despite all the anger inside him, the questions, the doubt, the familiarity of her warm embrace undid him. He wilted. He drew her against him, breathing in her scent, until she pulled back and looked him in the face. 'Where did you go? Marie said one moment you were playing with Gustave and the next you'd flung him at her and run from the house. I tried to catch you, but you didn't hear me, I -'

'Christine,' He interrupted. She stopped and looked at him questioningly. It was now or never. If he waited, he'd never have the courage again and until he knew, he could never look at her with the same eyes. 'Am I the father of your child?'

The colour drained from her face. She stepped away from him, weak-legged, shaking. A great change had come over her in less than a few seconds. She seemed to shrink into herself, seemed to grow smaller and weaker. More like a little girl than a woman. Finding the nearest perch she sank to it, the wounded bird overcome with emotion. She had not answered. He knew, right then and there, what he thought was true. But he wouldn't let her finish this in silence. He counted himself a good man and was, but finding that his son was not his son, that his wife had lain with another – with _that _of all others – was enough to make him boil. 'Then you don't deny it?' he raged.

Tears were streaming down her face.

'Raoul…' she protested weakly, pulling herself like a strings-cut puppet from the couch and reaching out for him.

'No! No pitying condolences, no attempts at reconciliation, no lies! No lies anymore, Christine!' He caught her arms, squeezed them, shook her, yet still she quietly sobbed and would not answer. 'You think I like to be angry with you? You think I like being like this? Just tell me the truth, that is all I want. That is all I deserve from you, if not more.' Still nothing. She stared blankly, blindly and he shook her again. She jolted but her stare did not. It was as though she had retreated in mind when she could not in body. 'The truth, Christine! The truth and this shall end, and we can talk about this like man and wife. Christine!'

'Yes!' she screamed, the end coming as a trill in her operatic tone. She saw what life he had fade and then she collapsed to the floor, sobbing 'yes' over and over into the rug, surrounded by a curtain of dark curls.

'Yes what? Answer me clearly, Christine. I asked if the boy was my son. Does 'yes' mean he is? Or does it not?' He fell to her, pulling her, more gentle than he had been before. Her hung head came up, defeated.

'No, Raoul. You – you are not his father.'

'How can you be certain? Did you not lay with me only the night after you…after you laid with him?'

Her lip quivered, but she remained stalwart, strength personified, as every mother is in defence of their child.

'How did _you_ know?' she said waveringly, 'His abilities, what he can do…'

'You mean he's done things before today?'

She nodded.

'His cry is even musical. Ethereal, the nurses said. I agreed. He tinkers with the piano when you're not here. Just silly little melodies, but he repeats them, Raoul, he, he remembers them from the time before. If that's not – if that's not _genetic_, then I don't know where it came from.'

'From you! It could have come from you!' Hope surged, until she shook her head.

'No, Raoul. Before he began to teach me, I was nothing. I sounded, like a _'_rusty nail' the girls in the ballet said. If it is inherited, it's not from me. I needed tutoring and I – I've never played an instrument in my life.'

With those words from his wife, he was finished. All the anger he had had left him. He had no energy for shouting or screaming, or even to cry. He simply sat, staring into nowhere, beside this cheating woman whom he loved with all his heart and realised, not for the first time, that she probably wasn't even noticing his presence. She too was far away in thought, though thinking of what he dare not ask. They sat there a long while, side by side, not touching, not speaking, only breathing in each other's space. This was their marriage, he realised, breathing in one another's space. Happiness was a word he had fondly used the these past years, but had never really felt. Deep inside him, he had understood that though she loved him as a childhood friend, perhaps a brother…she did not love him in the way a wife should love a husband. That last, longing look she had cast her 'angel' should have told him everything almost three years ago, but he had been blinded by his one-sided passions. Damn that voice, that beauty…she had bewitched him beyond reason and understanding. For a moment, he too knew what the Phantom had felt: enslaved to a creature in body and soul, who could never love him in return.

But the Phantom, the ghost, the _man _had conquered him. He had conquered Christine, body and soul, though he may never know it. And his son, that man's son, was the ever-present proof of it.

The unblemished, beautiful proof of the union between a girl and her monstrous angel.

Through the corner of his eye he saw her, statuesque and shivering, hair mussed, tears dried. In the few years since the events that would forever shadow their lives, she had grown into a woman from the girl she had been and he knew that the Phantom, God he didn't even know the name of this man who had destroyed his life…but he had played a big part in the evolution of Raoul's own wife from girl to woman, from chorus girl to leading lady.

'Christine?' he questioned softly, once a few more minutes had passed between them. Her head turned and she looked on him with the most vacant of expressions. 'We can't sit here forever. Dinner will be ready shortly.' No response at first, until she dragged herself, limply, to her feet. He touched her shoulder and she flinched back, no doubt remembering the anger with which he'd handled her last. It tore him to see it:

'Christine, I – you need not alter anything. Everything will remain as it was.'

At this she finally moved, her head snapping to meet him, shock written across every inch of her. 'I love you.' He said, capturing her hand in his, kissing the knuckle and the palm. 'This – what has happened, what happened years ago…it does not change those feelings. If you wish to stay, I would never try to make you leave. This is your home. This is Gustave's home. Stay.'

She was frozen, staring at their clasped hands and all too late he realised the similarity of the gesture. She had kissed the demon's hand before she left, just as he had then and now her watery gaze was fixed on the spot where his lips had touched her, her lips shaking. Her whole body began to tremble and as he reached out to wipe a tear from her cheek, she flew into his embrace, clutching at him.

'Oh, Raoul,' she whispered, furtively in his ear, 'forgive me. Please, please forgive me.'

'How can I not?' He said, half sighing, half resigned, yet still idiotically happy that she was holding him. 'You are my wife. I love you. What more is there?'

'I know.' She breathed. She did not say _I love you too. _He was straining to remember if she ever actually had. But now, in this shaky instant, it was no matter. He had his wife and her son in his house and they had begun their tentative steps towards an understanding. That was all he could hope for. He was deliriously, recklessly in love with a woman who would never be his.

Thus was his fate, forever, until death.

**AN:**

**Well, what did you think? It was more for me that I wrote it, because the thought of it randomly popped into my head. PLEASE REVIEW. Love you Phantom phans. x**


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